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| Bronze statue from the first century B.C. |
He and his friends were celebrating, making sacrifices in
temples near the Forum, when he saw his name on the white boards there, and went
white himself.
In the shifting civil unrest that prevailed since the
assassination of Julius Caesar, former foes Mark Antony and Octavian (later the
emperor Augustus) had met under truce on a small river island to pool their
power.
They and Antony’s friend Lepidus had formed the Second
Triumvirate, essentially a shared five-year dictatorship. They needed to raise
money for armies to oppose the forces of Caesar’s assassins, but how?
The answer was proscription — declaring on white boards in
the Forum the names of those citizens who were to be killed, with their lands
and fortunes seized. The three of them haggled to create a list of political and personal enemies they wanted to see liquidated. Anyone who
informed on one of the proscribed persons or helped to kill him got a cut of
the loot.
The young Atilius’ only crime was having a fortune worth
stealing. His friends and slaves immediately deserted him, and he went to his
mother, who was too frightened to hide him and turned him away.
Alone, Atilius fled to the mountains. But the rich boy was
eventually forced by hunger to return to the road, where a highwayman kidnapped
and enslaved him. In chains, he managed to escape to a main road where he
identified himself to passing centurions. Unwisely, as it turned out.
They killed Atilius and probably cut off his head. After
all, why drag a whole body back to Rome for the reward when all you need is the
head?
The idea of taking nothing whatsoever for granted may seem
unduly harsh to us now, but the Romans had their reasons.
Sources: “Augustus” by
Anthony Everitt; “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius
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